I want to upgrade the front suspension on my 2004 VFR. I am riding with an Ohlins shock and stock front end. I am buying progressive springs. However - honest opinions please! - in the real world in which I ride (street/highway), is there any cost-effective benefit to adding Race Tech emulators? I have heard conflicting reports about the benefits of Race Tech valves. What say you?
Obviously I'm biased but.... The valving in your forks should be matched to the springs in the forks otherwise the front end will just bounce around or behave badly. Your compression and rebound are controlled by the oil moving through those valves. When you change your springs you change the amount force it takes to compress the springs as well as change the amount of force the springs spring back. The RaceTech valves are valves that are just adjustable and can be set up for any situation you may have which in reality should just be just one, unless you go from race to street and back to race. If you didn't want to do valves then you could cheat and play with the weight of your fork oil. Some suspension people have told others to go as high as 20w oil to compensate for stiffer springs, I don't believe in that but... Our 6th gen forks have almost zero adjustability. Having the valves gives you the option to tweak to your hearts content providing that you are comfortable messing with it yourself. If your paying someone to do it then the tweaking will grow old and expensive rather quickly. As NCB once said, the best suspension is the best one that you have ridden. You won't notice if you don't get them, but since you have an awesome shock in the rear why only go half way in the front? Oh and my front end feels really really good and I know it's not because of the springs alone.
If you are capable of giving an honest assessment of your ability, what your bike is doing now and what you don't like about it, then yes. just slamming springs, gold valves, oil, and somebody's idea of what the best shim stack is still better than stock.
I imagine that the Race Tech valving setup is "better" than stock, but how much better? I use my bike for sporting street/road riding. Sport-touring, really. I am not building a track bike. I find the stock fork setup is undersprung for my weight and riding style. MAYBE it is under-damped too. I dunno. It sometimes pogos up front when I ride hard through a lumpy tight corner. That seems like a bit of a damping problem to me, but I have little experience in suspension. It's Black Magic! Some "experts" tell me that progressive springs tailored for my weight will go a long way toward solving the front-end "whooshy" feel when I push hard in lumpy corners. Others tell me that the VFR forks are ridiculously under-damped and need the Race Tech kits as well. WTF? That's my question. For spirited road riding - no track! - is a valving upgrade really worth the additional money? And I suppose it really isn't THAT much extra money for the compression/rebound kits - $350 or so, right?
So, Jason, how much extra $$$ did you spend for the Race Tech valves? And both you guys, what are you running up front? What springs? Do you both run with aftermarket valves? Help a guy out here. I do not want to piecemeal this FINAL mod to the VFR . . . .
I would like to argue this but given the disaster that is stock, NCB is most likely correct.It is the one thing that really makes me angry when trying to ride around hard braking.A mess at best. Next on my list but money is an issue.Given the retail value of these bikes new, the front end is a huge disappointment.
I bought the valves and put them in myself. All the part numbers etc of what I got are here... http://vfrworld.com/forums/mechanics-garage/28381-my-6th-gen-suspension-upgrade.html If you have an Ohlins in the rear IMO it would be totally lame to not do the front right. Your kinda treating it as a choice of whether to install them or not. I think of it as more mandatory than anything else. Last thing you want is your front end to be bass ackwards from your rear. Imagine your rear end compressing and rebounding different than the front. Sounds like an out of balance situation to me, not what I wanna feel around a corner. I waited until I could do the whole bike right before I did anything. Now for me it's just a matter of riding and tweaking to get it perfect.
170 pound rider, custom g2r cartridges, race tech gold valves (compression and race rebound), 1kg springs (single rate), 2.5wt oil (Motorex, 110 from the top), shim stacks have been changed twice...haven't touched them since. it works pretty well.
